Archive for the ‘relationships’ Category

Look, guys: we’re football fans, too. But you’ve all heard the expression, “If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” And you know it’s true. So why do you insist on making momma a football widow? Trust us: there’s a better way.

Hold on, now, football fans. We’re really not asking you to give up the TV clicker.

Or Sunday Night Football. Or Monday Night Football. Or –even if you’ve got that cool new option that let’s you watch all football games everywhere, even if they’re on the sunny side of Mars . . . we say: go for it!

Hey, we’re football fans, too.

But.

If you’ve noticed a decided chill in the home-sweet-home atmosphere starting in August pre-season that lessens a bit after the February Super Bowl, but that . . . well, kind of leaves a little residue of frost in your relationship all year long . . .

. . . you might want to ask yourself: is there a better way?

We mean, why isn’t your dearly beloved curled up next to you on the sofa in front of the TV, cheering along with you?

Perhaps – uh – celebrating with you after the game?

What’s that you say? She hates football?

Really? But football is fascinating, exciting, balletically graceful, even intellectually challenging.

You know darn well football is as easy to understand as peeling a banana.

So if she doesn’t understand the game, it must be because – aha! You haven’t taken the time to explain it to her!

And why might that be?

First, let’s accept that she may not have had your advantages growing up. The female of the species is less often initiated into the Joy of Sports than the male.

Also, bear in mind that adult learning tends to be more difficult than the childhood variety, so we admit this may require your patience and understanding.

Perhaps your tutorial might be softened by a slim (so as not to intimidate) paperback of football basics tied up with a pretty bauble, a love note tucked inside telling her how ardently you desire to share all of your life with her.

A nicely chilled bottle of champagne couldn’t hurt.

The main thing, though, guys, is: be gentle.

But be firm.

There’s a lot riding on this.

Consider what’s in it for you. Oh, yes: and for her, too.

You know: all those little side bets you can make during the game once she knows the basics. Will they go for a first down with a yard to go? Will it be a pass play or a running play?

Name the bet. A foot massage, perhaps. Or . . . well, you can figure it out. Be creative.

Then after the game, when you’re both euphoric – or perhaps in need of cheering up – collect your winnings.

Football season is about to begin. Again. You both get chills. But for oh such different reasons.

For the football widow, winter starts in August. The NFL pre-season. He’s glued to the TV. His hearing begins to fade. He can still hear the sportscasters all right. Both the color commentators and the play-by-play.

It’s just that he can no longer hear you.

You wrap your sweater around you a little bit tighter. The chill has begun.

And you know it will last until the February Super Bowl.

Unless . . . is there perhaps a way to rewrite this worn out, tired old script?

Mercifully, gentle Football Widow, there is.

Let us call your attention to your dearly beloved Football Fan. You will note that, in fact, he is not cold at all. Quite the contrary! He is positively ablaze . . . at least when his team is winning.

Okay, then. Let us acknowledge that there is considerable heat being generated. Why, then, are you so cold?

Could it have anything to do with your being in a separate room, sulking? Or perhaps you’ve just returned from the mall or your mother’s or wherever hoping to find the game finally, blessedly over.

When you find it isn’t . . . well, uh, that draft you feel is you slamming the door.

Why? When all the heat is there waiting for you in front of the TV, why do you continue to refuse it?

But you hate football! Oh, really? What exactly do you know about the game?

Are you willing to agree that you have to know something at least a little bit before you can reasonably declare that you hate it?

Then, consider this: if you did learn about football, maybe you’d find out that you liked it after all.

Really. It could happen.

And, hey, what would it take? At least check out a book that would teach you the basics of the game. Make it a thin book. A paperback. We’re not talking Webster’s Unabridged here.

Of course, if you’re planning on coaching the game, we admit it can get downright complicated. Like chess on Astroturf.

But since the fundamentals you need to understand and maybe even enjoy the game are more like the fundamentals you need to understand checkers . . . well, you should be ready to cuddle up on the sofa and at least know what’s going on in no time.

Okay then. A quick read. All that heat waiting for you on the sofa. It’s gotta be worth a try, wouldn’t you say?

Unless somewhere in the recesses of your devious little heart, being a football widow holds some sort of dark attraction.

Maybe if you understood why your guy loves football, his obsession wouldn’t drive you quite as crazy. In fact, play your cards right, and you may find out you can make his obsession work for you instead of against you.

Football, football and more football. From August NFL pre-season through February Super Bowl, that’s all your guy thinks about. A bunch of Neanderthals running around in circles: what, you may have asked, is the big deal?

Well, of course, there’s the obvious guy-stuff bonding. Depending on where you fall in the range of femininity – we all have varying proportions of yin and yang – that might mean for you lunch with the girls, a political rally, book club, or yoga class.

But, you say, you are not obsessed with yoga class. Or book club. Or lunch.

He, on the other hand, is obsessed with the game of football.

Indeed. Because that’s only the top layer. The cover story, as it were.

Obsession runs a lot deeper.

The thing is, your guy is not only bonding with his beer-guzzling buddies. He’s bonding with the guys out there on the field.

Most things in life – including football and oatmeal – work on at least two levels.Usually a lot more.

There is, of course, Football the Game.It’s a specific sport played with it’s own set of rules and regulations.

To begin with, there is a difference between playing the game and watching it.And what that means to the individual player and to the individual watcher.

Same with oatmeal.It is, of course, a cereal.It has rules of a sort: half a cup of dry cereal to one cup of water.Or milk, if you prefer.A dash of salt.Unless you’re on a low sodium diet.

But oatmeal may also be considered from the differing viewpoints of what it means to the individual who cooks it and to the individual who eats it.

For the parent preparing oatmeal for the kids on a cold winter morning, it may be an act of love.

Ditto for the significant others who prepare oatmeal to help lower the cholesterol of their dearly beloveds.

The eater, then, may obtain from oatmeal more than insoluble fiber.The memory of Mom or Dad making a raisin face for the morning oatmeal may provide solace on other cold winter mornings long after the kids are no longer kids.

That is, there is the thing itself – like oatmeal – and then there is the feeling attached to that thing.

For the kid whose parent burnt the oatmeal and screamed at the kid to shut up and eat it anyway, the memories may be a tad less heartwarming.

And that’s the way it is with football.Granted, at bottom, it’s just a game.But, like oatmeal, it can also be a good or a bad memory.Or a power play.Or even a weapon.

We’ll begin our Learn About Football, Improve your Relationship Series with some facts about an NFL legend.Brett Favre.After playing for the Packers in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for sixteen years, Mr. Favre has just signed with the New York Jets.We live in New Jersey, but we’re right on the banks of the Hudson River, so we can shake our fists at New York from our living room window.

Now, we think it’s truly cool that Brett Favre is now quarterbacking the New York Jets.Even so, our proximity to New York is not why we’re writing about Brett Favre and the NFL.

It’s because the first question we were asked after our book was published was not about how the game is played, or even how to look sexy while watching Sunday Night Football.It was about Brett Favre.

So this is in answer to our ophthalmologist’s wife, who felt dumb because all her husband’s friends were talking about Brett Favre, and she didn’t even know what a Brett Favre was.

Which brings up an interesting point about relationships: why didn’t the good doctor just tell his wife a little bit about Brett Favre?See, here’s the thing: many of you guys complain about being asked “stupid questions” by your beloved while you’re trying to watch the football game.But how can you learn if you don’t ask?

So our question is: why not take a little time to explain the game a couple of mornings over breakfast or on a game-less Tuesday evening?Then maybe you could just root together in peace on Sunday night, yes?

Meanwhile, if some of you football mavens would share your knowledge with us by posting on this blog, you might have a peaceful breakfast, too.Sound like a plan?

Anyway, we’ve got Brett Favre covered.We’ll tell you all about him in our next post.But feel free to add anything we may miss.

Learn about football. Improve your relationship. Change the world. We wrote the book. We thought we were done here.

We were feeling pretty smug, if you want to know the truth. Hey, we thought, with Football is for Lovers, you guys could learn enough about football so that you could watch a game, know what was going on, and even enjoy it. Plus (we thought, blushing) we showed you how learning football could be sexy so that you could use it to spice up your relationship. Heck, we even provided the wardrobe for you: basic black logo T-shirt and an infinite supply of official NFL jerseys.

And then, we put plenty of football factoids in the book so you’d know some cool stuff your beloved probably didn’t, so you could maybe feel a little smug, too.

And as if the book weren’t enough, we began writing a bunch of articles about football and relationships and like that, and we posted them to our website.

We mean, geez, guys. We already gave you the blueprint for intimacy, romance, sex, M&M’s, and whole new way of looking at football. We even threw in a Burma Shave sign.

What more could you want?

Well, we got the answer to that question pretty darn quick.

Seems like we didn’t tell you Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Football and Relationships after all. Well, we did warn you in the book that nobody knows everything, and nobody is ever completely ready for anything. Even so, when you feel dumb, you don’t feel sexy. When you feel smart, you do. So obviously we don’t want to leave you stranded with unanswered questions.

Okay, then. Here’s the plan: we’ll get this blog rolling with more football facts and relationship tips, and try to tell you what you want to know. Still, we’re only Bob and Kaye. Can we get a little help here?

Which brings us to the Big Co-Op Idea. You guys can ask whatever you want, and maybe we can all give each other some answers. About relationships, NFL teams and players, when it’s time to call a quarterback sneak, the best way to accessorize a Raiders jersey. Whatever. Bob and Kaye may not know everything, but among us all, we’ll bet we know quite a lot. Maybe even enough to change the world.

Learn about football, improve your relationship, change the world. We’re Bob and Kaye, and that, in a nutshell, is the mission of our blog. We already wrote a book, Football is for Lovers, to kick things off. And, yes: the book is about learning football and improving your relationship. Changing the world may take a few more books. Meanwhile, we’re aware that even when it comes to learning football and improving your relationship, our book may not be quite enough. Hence the blog. Which we hope will become sort of a learn football/improve your relationship co-op, with you guys posting relationship tips as well as information about the NFL team of your choice. And maybe all that sharing will move us a little further toward changing the world.